“VALUE ENGINEERING PROJECT”

THE restaurant project, touted by Dagupan Mayor Benjamin Lim as his tourism-related initiative, being constructed in an area across the equally controversial Daongan Ed Dawel appears to have been aborted.

 

Construction work has completely stopped for over two weeks now after The PUNCH reported the absence of building permits for the construction of the completed Daongan ed Dawel and the planned restaurant.

 

But today, it appears that the absence of a building permit is the least of the restaurant project contractor- investor whom the mayor refused to identify to date, because a lawsuit for land-grabbing is already being mulled against him or her, and possibly including some city hall officials.

 

The PUNCH’s sources at the city hall point to the unnamed “contractor-investor” in the Daongan facility as the same investor in the restaurant project.

 

Contrary to earlier impression that Mayor Lim earlier made, the land on which the restaurant is being erected is not owned by the city government but owned in part privately by a Manila-based family and largely by the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH), but neither owner has given permission for the use of their respective properties.

 

A lady representative of the Tuazon family, the private owner of the fishpond annexed by the restaurant project, reportedly went to the city hall two weeks ago to demand an explanation for the illegal occupancy of the family’s property.

 

Nobody in city hall confirmed the meeting but some sources who refused to be identified said the owner was simply asked by a ranking city hall official to consider leasing the property to the investor.

 

She reportedly declined and threatened to file a case for land-grabbing.

 

DPWH

 

Meanwhile, DPWH Second Highway District Engineer Rodolfo Dion confirmed that a large part of the lot occupied by the proposed restaurant was originally the approach area of the old Bailey bridge that linked Bonuan to Dagupan’s downtown area.

 

Dion confirmed that DPWH never granted any person or firm the right to use its property.

 

The old bridge was replaced in 1974 by the present Dawel Bridge, and the area has since been idle.

 

A permit for such use, Dion explained, would have to be in the form of a contract bearing the signature of the DPWH secretary.

 

“Only the level of the Secretary can approve the use of a DPWH property by any private individual or entity,” Dion said.

 

Dion said he also never had any talk with Mayor Lim or his representative about the use of the property.

 

Mayor Benjamin Lim had admitted in a radio interview early this month after he was confronted with the issue on the absence of building permits that the restaurant project is a private initiative of an investor known to him but whom he declined to identify.

 

In the same radio program, Lim also admitted that while the completed Daongan project is government-owned, has no building permit and no bidding for the project was conducted as required by law.

 

He pointed out then that the restaurant would complement the Daongan facility to develop the area as a tourism project.

 

The PUNCH earlier reported that the construction of the two projects were being supervised by the mayor but a check with the city engineer’s office revealed that the two did not have building permits.

A similar case hounded the construction of the Metro Plaza on fronting the city hall during the second term of Mayor Lim in 2005.

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